May 4 (Bloomberg) -- UBS Financial Services Inc. lost a
jury verdict of almost $10.6 million in a case brought by a
former sales assistant who said she was sexually harassed by a
supervisor in Missouri and then fired for complaining about him.

Carla C. Ingraham, 51, who worked in the Kansas City,
Missouri, office of UBS Financial, said the company began
investigating her after she complained of harassment in December
2008 and fired her in July 2009. UBS Financial, a unit of
Zurich, Switzerland-based UBS AG, denied the allegations.

The jury in Kansas City, Missouri, yesterday awarded
Ingraham $10 million in punitive damages, $350,000 for sexual
harassment and $242,000 for retaliation. UBS Financial is
considering whether to appeal the verdict, said Karina Byrne, a
spokeswoman for the bank.

“The firm does not tolerate sexual harassment of any kind
against an employee,” Byrne said yesterday in an e-mailed
statement. The company “prohibits any form of retaliation
against an employee who may file a complaint under the UBS
sexual harassment policy.”

Byrne said the punitive-damages verdict will be limited to
$500,000 by caps on such awards.

Ingraham will also be seeking future lost pay and
attorneys’ fees to be added to the verdict, Dennis Egan, her
lawyer, said. These amounts will be determined by the court and
the punitive award will be capped at five times the final
judgment, under law, Egan said.

New Supervisor

Ingraham, who began working for UBS predecessor Kidder,
Peabody in 1986, assisted a broker, processing trade requests
and preparing client presentations, she said in her complaint.
She said the harassment began when she was assigned a new
supervisor in January 2003.

The supervisor “repeatedly made inappropriate comments
about Ingraham’s breast size,” called her into his office “to
view sexually offensive e-mails on his computer,” and
repeatedly talked about the size of his genitals,” she said. He
also asked her about her sexual fantasies, she said in the
lawsuit.

The verdict is “a wonderful vindication of the jury
system,” Egan said after the trial yesterday. The company
“said the claims were baseless, but then they issued all these
letters of reprimand” against men at the company who worked at
Ingraham’s office, he said.